


We'll Make Our Own Stars

by StepIntoTheLiminal



Series: Fetts Falling In Love [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:36:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26991517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StepIntoTheLiminal/pseuds/StepIntoTheLiminal
Summary: Jango fought in the Mandalorian Civil War. He was one of the best. He completed more missions, survived more battles than anyone. But he fought on the "wrong side" and now Mandalore says he's not one of them. He doesn't care. He left because he found home - the home that Mandalore only ever pretended to be. Rated M for lots of swearing and OC death. (ps it's very gay)
Relationships: Jango Fett/OC
Series: Fetts Falling In Love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1969978
Kudos: 3





	We'll Make Our Own Stars

"They think us defeated. They call us outdated, a relic of a dying age. I say THEY WILL NOT WIN!"

A roar met the words.

"I say they are weak. They want us to abandon our way of life, they want us to abandon our clans, they want us to abandon our very selves! They will make dar'manda of all of us! What do we say to them?"

"Nu draar!"

A hundred voices shouted in unison.

It was a decent speech. Jango had heard better. He shoved off the post he'd been leaning against in the back of the room. Once was, back when this had all started, he would've been in the front of the pack, cheering along with everyone else. But at some point in the last three years he'd crossed the line from believer to disillusioned old war dog.

All the speeches sounded the same. The war cries were all the same. Every mouth spouted the same rhetoric.

It was pointless. They were losing. They were at the tail end of a war that had decimated both sides and they were losing.

Tonight he was just sick of it all.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Go," Jango said.

The girl was young, fresh off her second battle, and chafing to be celebrating with her friends.

"Go, I'll finish up here."

He imagined the flashing grin, the excitement in her eyes. She barely took the time to thank him before lifting off.

It was only her second battle. She didn't need to do this tonight.

Besides, he didn't want some kid hanging around and complaining the whole while. Jango preferred to do cleanup by himself. Although how, exactly, checking for and eliminating enemy survivors had come to be called 'cleanup,' he didn't know. No, the real cleanup would happen tomorrow when the civilians showed up to collect bodies for burning and beskar for re-purposing. This was tying off loose ends. This was burning a knot to prevent fraying. This was practicality. This was making sure no one would have to shoot the same man twice.

Surely there had to be a better word than 'cleanup' that could express all that.

Someone coughed.

Jango spun, blaster out, visor scanning for life signs. Three. One rapidly fading, one marked unconscious—there.

A man. Alive. Injured. But not dying.

Jango approached warily, circling around to shoot the other two first. He didn't want any surprises.

"Ah, fuck." The man's helmet was off. His skin was dark, darker than any other Mandalorian Jango had seen. "I was hoping I'd have time to hobble out of here before you came around."

"Sorry to disappoint."

The man laughed heartily. He had a face meant for laughing. "You fucking liar."

Jango smiled despite himself.

"I'm Aduk, by the way."

"Jango Fett."

"I'm going to reach for my flask now, if that's all right."

He nodded.

The man calling himself Aduk reached into a pouch on his leg—and cursed. "Fucking thing got shot."

After a moment's consideration, Jango tossed his over.

"Much appreciated." Aduk took a long swig. And gagged. "What the fuck is that?"

"The only shit left on our side. Don't ask."

Aduk took another swallow. Grimaced. Shook his head. Tossed it back. "Well, come on then. Let's get this over with."

Jango scanned him again. He had suffered a grazing shot to one leg. No other injuries.

"Any time now."

He looked around. There was nothing else alive for miles in every direction. They were alone.

"I know what you're here for. I know what I signed up for. Get it the fuck over with already."

It wasn't false bravado talking—Aduk's vitals were normal. He wasn't even scared. Jango looked down at the flask in his hand. Took his helmet off. Sat next to the wounded man fighting for the other side. He had a fucking drink. He fixed Aduk's jetpack. It was an older model. Temperamental.

And when he left, he left the man breathing.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They met again six months later. Jango's visor recognized the vitals, recognized the life signature—and, automatically, Jango aimed at the man behind him instead.

He reconsidered a second later when Aduk slammed into him and sent both of them flailing to the ground. Jango wasn't stupid—he fought for his life.

And, to no small surprise, he learned that Aduk was better.

"Why the fuck did you leave me alive?" Aduk demanded when he had Jango dead to rights. "What? You tired of killing? Tired of war, old man?"

Jango laughed. "I'm not that old."

Aduk hit him again, solidly knocking the air from his lungs.

"I'm tired of killing for no fucking reason," Jango wheezed out when he could speak again. "I don't give a shit who rules Mandalore. Really, I don't. We're all the same down in this muck, aren't we? Oh, your side preaches peace and change, but they're still willing to meet us here by our rules and our traditions and get just as fucking dirty as everyone else."

Aduk had gone very still while listening—and Jango was never one to pass up an opportunity. He heaved and rolled the larger man off, pressing a blaster into the soft space under Aduk's helmet. But his finger never even wanted to pull the trigger.

"Let's leave."

Jango paused.

"Let's just fucking leave."

Aduk was serious, he realized. Jango's mind reeled at the implications. "If you survive," he heard himself say, "meet me at the mythosaur bones southeast of here."

"When?"

"Whenever you can get there."

Then, before he had the chance to change his mind, Jango rejoined the battle.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aduk was already waiting at the ancient corpse when Jango arrived. He had hung his helmet on one of the beast's ribs, letting it dangle precariously at a height that might be lethal if it landed on either of their heads.

"Why'd you call me old man?" Jango asked as he landed.

"What, no greeting?" Aduk's voice was a pleasant bass rumbling over the desert, his tone mild as water. "No 'hey, how are you'? Nothing?"

"You're alive. That's all I need to know."

Aduk made an offended face that morphed quickly into a smile.

"You should keep your helmet on," Jango said. "Your face reads like a fucking map."

The darker man laughed. "I've been told."

"Why did you call me old man?"

"Because they warn us about you, Jango Fett. You're a fucking nightmare to those people. Unkillable, unbeatable, unstoppable."

Jango had heard the rumors about the stories these 'New Mandalorians' had been spreading. He hadn't paid any attention then and he didn't now. "Those people?"

Aduk looked at him sharply.

"Your words, not mine."

He sighed. Stared at the barren ground, then up at the stars. "I came from somewhere out there," he finally said. "I don't even remember where. I'm a Foundling, as they say. I say I was stolen. And I don't fucking care if they stole me from the jaws of Death himself. They still stole me." Aduk turned his black eyes back to Jango. "I meant it, you know. We could leave if we wanted to."

Jango considered. The man was right—they would be able to pull it off. Perhaps no one else could. "It's different for you," he said, finally removing his own helmet. He saw the way Aduk's eyes roamed his face. He saw the appreciation. The attraction. And he filed it away to think about later. "I was born here."

Aduk nodded. Said nothing.

Leaning against what remained of a massive jaw, Jango sighed and looked up at the stars. "Out there is no better than here, you know. Everyone is fighting over something. Everyone's killing each other for no fucking reason at all."

Jango didn't bother lowering his head to watch as Aduk joined him, settling into place a bare hands breadth away.

"I'm not looking for paradise," Aduk said. "I'm just looking to not follow anyone's dumbass orders."

Jango laughed. Turned his head to consider the man next to him. "It won't be easy out there."

A lazy smile spread Aduk's lips. "I think I just heard a yes."

When Aduk leaned down to kiss him, something twanged in Jango's heart. Something that used to twang when the clan leader would make his speeches, when he used to drink with his brothers and sisters after a battle, when he used to believe in the cause.

Something that felt like home.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If he had to go through it all again, he would.

Jango sometimes had nightmares about his clan tracking them down and executing them slowly in the old style reserved for traitors. He sometimes saw their faces—the faces of his brothers and sisters he had grown up with—but instead of the smiles and lectures and near-awe he had seen from them most, he saw their faces as he had last seen them. They raged. They hated him.

He would weather that change again, suffer every single nightmare again as if for the first time.

They called him dar'manda now. A Mandalorian who had lost himself, lost his history, lost his clan, lost his very soul. The worst thing a Mandalorian could be. A Mandalorian who was not even a Mandalorian anymore.

How very little they knew.

Because Jango got to wake up next to his man every morning. He fell asleep wrapped in his man's arms. He fought and lived and breathed by his man's side. Nothing else in his life had ever come close to that.

Jango had found his home.

And he marveled every single damn day that Aduk had found the same in him.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It didn't take long for Jango and Aduk to build a reputation for themselves. There weren't many bounty hunters with genuine beskar armor, for one thing. But it was their efficiency that truly did it. They never failed a bounty. Never failed a rescue mission. Never failed. Ever.

If they were paid to defend, their charges stayed alive. If they were paid to kill, their targets had a ticking clock as soon as they accepted the job. If they were hired to smuggle, the cargo always arrived on time with no damage. If they were paid to look intimidating and be expensive ornaments in the background of a party, they charged quadruple the going rate—and got away with it.

For six years, they were unstoppable.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What do you think about kids?" Aduk asked one night.

Jango had been dreading this moment. He sat up, breaking out of his lover's hold.

"Jango?"

He took a deep breath to steady his nerves. Aduk wouldn't leave—he knew that, understood it completely, reminded himself every single fucking day—but this... this would be the one thing that might make him.

"Love, what is it?"

It took one more shuddering breath before Jango could get the words out. "I'm sterile."

Aduk's hand stilled on his back. "Well," he said after a moment, "then I suppose it's a good thing I'm not."

"But if we have a kid," Jango spoke very slowly, not wanting to fuck anything up, "I want it to be ours. I don't want a kid that might take after someone neither of us knows."

"That's a good point." Aduk sat up and wrapped his arms around Jango, resting his chin on Jango's head in the way that Jango pretended to hate but they both knew that he loved. "So we go to Coruscant. Surely someone there will have figured out how to make a kid out of pure genetic material, yeah?"

So they went to Coruscant. Spent their last credits—not their absolute last, but enough so that they only had enough for fuel to get off world—only to hear the same thing from every expert.

"If the sterility were caused by an injury, we may be able to reverse it. But since it's genetic..."

"It's impossible."

"To make viable child, we need viable sperm."

"We have databases of donors, we can match someone up to ninety-eight percent accuracy."

Jango was in a cold rage when they left the system. It was an ancient rage. A familiar rage.

"Hey," Aduk said, squeezing his shoulder. "They're not the only options—"

"Enough!" Jango snapped. And immediately softened. He couldn't be mad at Aduk. At the doctors and the scientists and specialists, absolutely. At himself, definitely. But at Aduk? Never. "Enough," he repeated, softly this time. "It's impossible."

Aduk stared at him with those dark eyes Jango loved so much. "You really want a kid, don't you?"

Jango looked away, shaking his head just a little. Tears stung at the backs of his eyes. A deep breath shuddered through his chest as he set the ship's autopilot.

"Talk to me. Please."

Fuck. Jango's chin dropped to his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut. Clenched his jaw.

"It's funny, isn't it? No matter how tightly closed the eye gets, the tear always manages to escape. It's inevitable, love. No use fighting it."

Jango curled in on himself, his whole body clenched into one giant fist.

"Come on." Aduk tugged on his sleeve. "The ship's on autopilot. Come on. Let me hold you."

A single sob wracked his frame. Jango stood. Allowed Aduk to guide him to their bed. Later, when his tears were spent, he finally spoke.

"I always wanted kids. For as long as I can remember. Son, daughter, I didn't fucking care. I just wanted to have a little person to take care of, to nurture. I wanted to see them growing up and discovering who they are. And then... it was a routine physical. I was eighteen. The doctor discovered a 'genetic abnormality' and wanted to figure out what it was. It took a long time for me to get used to the idea that I would never have a child of my own, you know? That I could adopt, I could raise a Foundling or whatever, but a child that was mine? Who looked like me, talked like me, took after me? That was impossible. I thought I was over it. Thought I'd moved on. Shows what I know."

Aduk listened. And when Jango was finished talking, his lover pressed a kiss to his forehead. "We'll figure it out," he said.

And Jango found out that he didn't even know when his tears were spent.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They heard a rumor. Heard some whisperings about a system near Rishi that apparently had some top-notch scientists that specialized in cloning. So they went looking.

The natives were nice. Hospitable. Let them land, let them dock, refueled their ship, gave them lodging. They offered a free consultation. They offered to do some tests—on the house. Charges would only incur if they actually ordered a specimen.

Jango didn't like them. He didn't trust them. He didn't like the term 'specimen.'

Aduk was very curious about the whole affair. "Just wait and see before you kill them all, all right?" he would say. "You never know, they might come up with something."

A week later, their Kaminoan host returned. "It is possible," she said. "We could create a clone, of a sort, from a combination of your DNA."

"A human child?" Aduk asked, a hopeful grin spreading across his face. "A regular human child, no modifications or anything, that's half mine and half Jango's?"

"Yes."

Jango held hope on the far end of a spear. "How much?"

"Thirty thousand."

The room went very quiet. Aduk's grin froze into a sick parody of celebration before shattering and falling to the floor in pieces. "Credits?" he exclaimed. "Thirty thousand galactic credits? Have you lost your fucking mind?"

The Kaminoan did not seem to react. "That is our price."

Jango scoffed. Too good to be true. All of it. He'd smelled a rat from the start. "Come on, love." He took Aduk's arm and steered him toward the door. "Let's go before we lose our welcome."

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We could sell the ship."

"We're not selling the ship."

"How else are we going to get that kind of money? It would take us decades to earn it doing what we do, Jango. Decades. By then we'd be too old to raise a kid."

Jango sighed. Looked away.

"You don't want to try," Aduk accused. "You don't even want to fucking try."

Jango looked back up. Gripped his man by the shoulders. "No, I don't. You know why?"

Aduk only stared.

"Because you, here, this? This life that we have? This is better than anything I ever dreamed I would have for myself, Aduk. Because of you. I won't give this up. Not even for a kid, all right? I love you. And I. am. content."

Those beautiful dark eyes softened. Aduk raised a hand to curve around Jango's head and slide to the back of his neck, tugging him down for a kiss. "All right," he said when they broke apart. "All right."

Jango nodded, relieved that his man was willing to let it go.

"We won't sell the ship."

Fuck.

"But we will be saving. As much as possible. From every job."

Jango opened his mouth—only to have Aduk press a gentle finger against his lips.

"You're not the only one who's wanted a kid for as long as you can remember, Jango. We're saving up."

And of course Jango had to sigh, but he had to smile too.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Got a good one for you," the Guild master said, sliding the puck across the table. "Only for the best. I've lost six operatives to this bounty already."

Jango activated it. "A Wookiee? They're not that hard to kill."

A second puck joined the first. Then a third.

Aduk let out a low whistle. "They are when there's three of them."

"More than that," the Guild master said, dropping his voice as if it wouldn't fucking carry anyway, "they're on Kashyyyk."

Jango pushed the pucks away. "That's not a bounty. That's a suicide mission."

"The client is paying five thousand per head."

Aduk whistled again. Nudged Jango. "I bet we can do it."

"If we can talk down the locals, maybe," Jango mused. "But that's a big maybe and a bigger if. I don't speak Wookiee, do you?"

"I have a translator."

Jango rolled his eyes.

"Better than nothing."

Jango looked at his lover. Tallied up their combined abilities. Tallied up all the fights they had survived that they really fucking shouldn't have. "All right," he finally said. "We'll take it."

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This was a horrible idea."

"This was your fucking idea, Aduk!"

Jango ducked behind cover as his man's laugh rippled outward, spreading across the battlefield like honey.

"Eat shit, motherfuckers!" Aduk screamed as he launched a grenade toward the ten—ten!—Wookiees currently trying to kill them.

Ten. There were supposed to be three.

The grenade did its job. Everything quieted. The quiet would be brief, Jango knew, but he'd seen enough fights to appreciate it when it came.

"Maybe next time we take a job involving Wookiees," Jango suggested, "we ask a couple more questions first. Just to make sure they don't have bounties BECAUSE THEY ESCAPED SLAVERY."

"I thought you weren't morally opposed to anything?" The saucy grin on Aduk's face was hidden behind the helmet, but Jango heard it plain as day.

"Don't flirt with me while we're fighting, babe. I still have the scar from the last time you distracted me."

"Hey, now, don't go blaming me when your attention wanders, old man."

Jango's instincts blared a warning. "They've been quiet too long, haven't they?"

"DOWN!"

Aduk tackled him, momentum forcing them to roll away from their cover.

Something exploded far too close, leaving Jango's ears ringing even with the helmet's protection, and he felt more than heard the footsteps that raced their way. Jango fired up his jetpack, knowing Aduk would follow suit—but there wasn't the burst of speed that he was used to, only a lurching and a whine as the jetpack fought to lift them both.

Jango swore.

A Wookiee's face appeared over the edge of their cover. Jango took the only option he had and fired the missile on his back straight into its face. Judging by the screams, the blast took out at least one more. The footsteps faded in the opposite direction. Blaster bolts punched into the rocks and sailed over their heads as the Wookiees covered their retreat.

"Why did you not fucking replace this relic when I told you to?" Jango hissed as he tugged Aduk back toward their cover.

"Sentimental value," his man said. His voice... was wrong. Strained. Small.

Jango's blood ran cold. No. No. No, no, no no nonono

But he had to look.

His man was missing both feet.

It had been a long time, a very fucking long time, since Jango Fett had panicked on a battlefield. But that was irrelevant. His breath started to heave. His eyes darted around for something, anything to make it better.

"Hey," Aduk said. "Hey. Calm down."

Jango wanted to scream. He very nearly did.

"Jango!"

He flinched.

"Listen to me." Aduk pulled his helmet off. Gripped Jango's arm with the same strong hand that had kicked his ass all those years ago on Mandalore. "I'm not leaving this rock."

"Don't you fucking say that," Jango snarled. "I can figure this out, I can—"

"Do you know why I kept the jetpack? Old and shitty as it is?"

Jango shook his head, rejecting everything that was happening, refusing to even consider why Aduk wouldn't fucking let him think.

"Because if this thing hadn't malfunctioned that day, we never would have met."

There's a way out of here, I know I can get us back to the ship if he would only let me fucking think...

"You can't let go of the ship, can't even rename the damn thing, because that's how we got away and that's how we made our life together. Well, I couldn't let go of this relic because this thing right here is how we began."

Jango felt a tear slide down his face. His visor readouts were blaring warnings about massive blood loss and infection and countdown to see a doctor before death was inevitable. The countdown wasn't in days or even hours. It was minutes.

Minutes wasn't enough.

"I'm not getting off this rock," Aduk said gently. "I am sorry, my love. But I can make sure you do."

"Don't." Jango's voice wavered. "Don't fucking ask me to—"

"I can't do it myself. And we can't rig the pack up to do it either. I'll have to pilot it. Please, Jango. I don't want both of us to die here."

Everything in Jango recoiled from the idea. His soul screamed, his mind wailed, his bones shrank into themselves. But his instincts... his instincts said Aduk was right. So Jango took a breath. And shoved all else to the side.

His fingers shook as they made the necessary adjustments.

Aduk pressed a kiss to those fingers. Put his helmet back on. "Promise me," he said, poised for takeoff. "Promise me you'll raise our kid. I don't want you wasting away, wallowing in your own shit and blaming me for it. Fucking promise me, Jango."

"I promise," Jango whispered. It felt like a lie. But he said it anyway. "I promise."

Aduk's jetpack fired up.

He watched until his man winked out of his line of sight. He tucked himself into a ball. Counted to five.

A massive concussion ripped through the air. Dust on the ground rippled like water.

Jango Fett's world went silent.

He didn't look back. Didn't collect proof. He flew away from Kashyyyk and never once looked back.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The bounty pucks beeped as one. It was a slow, steady rhythm. Almost like a heartbeat.

After a week, Jango finally activated them.

"Meet me on the moons of Bogden," a snide male voice said. "I would speak with you."

They stopped beeping.

Jango considered, briefly, tossing them out the airlock.

But he had made a promise.

So he went to the moons of Bogden.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He didn't like the cloaked man. He didn't like the way things pushed and pulled at his mind, he didn't like the condescension, he didn't like anything about him at all. But he was a professional. So he listened.

Although, when he heard what the man wanted, Jango almost laughed in his stupid hooded face.

Almost.

"All I have to do is live on Kamino for a few years?"

Tyranus nodded.

"Give them my DNA, let them make hundreds of thousands of clones of me, and you'll pay five hundred credits per clone?"

"Yes."

"What's the catch?"

"No catch."

"You're going to try to kill me when you've decided I've become expendable, aren't you."

"There is risk involved, as there is with all of your work."

Jango shifted. Shook his head. Refused to think about the events that led him here. Pushed the surrealism away. "I'll do it."

"Perfect. I'll let them know you're coming."

"Tell them I have a condition of my own."

"What condition?"

"They'll know what it is."

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the Kaminoan handed him the carefully wrapped bundle, Jango's heart finally started beating again. He cradled the boy to his chest. Smiled for the first time in almost a year.

Memories flicked through his head, making him flinch. A single tear dropped to the boy's—his baby's—face.

The tiny mouth opened and an even tinier sound followed.

Jango Fett's world was no longer silent.

"Boba," he whispered. "My son. My Boba."

Aduk had suggested that one, during a midnight discussion about the merits and drawbacks of various names. The memory hurt. It probably always would. But someday, eventually, he would want to tell their son about his other dad.

"Your name is Boba. You are my son. And I love you more than anything in the whole fucking galaxy."

**Author's Note:**

> nu draar - not never (Mandalorian uses double negatives for emphasis)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed my personal headcanon for why Jango resorted to cloning to get a son. And yes I know Jango's armor is canonically a durasteel alloy but ssshhh it's beskar leave me alone.
> 
> Anyway. Leave a kudos or a comment, if you feel so inclined. See ya!


End file.
